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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Any change/addition fo...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Any change/addition for multi-select picklist workarounds in CRM2015?

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Posted on by awalters 3,079

I see that people have been trying to work around the lack of multi-select fields since the earliest days of the product, and the functionality appears to still not be there OOTB.

Some workarounds I've seen:

  • Javascript (prone to breakage and error and upgrade issues, from what I've seen)
  • Having a two option field for each "option", and changing the display to a checkbox, so you have a number of fields that can be checked on or off (tedious to set up, seems like it would take extra space in each record and extra processing in each report)
  • Making an entity with your option list, and then making an N:N relationship (has issues with reporting and advanced find, apparently - also would have to secure each one if you didn't want people adding to them.  Also wonder about the overhead on this...)

Mind you, all the issues/disadvantages above are things I'm gleaning from people using old versions.  I'm not seeing any discussion of the on 2015 yet.  We're going to run some tests as well, but anyone either using any other workarounds for this, or have anything additional to say (or refute) about the above options?

It seems so odd that this feature isn't OOTB...:-/  Anyone know if there are any plans?  It seems like it's a restriction people have been chafing at for quite some time.

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  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: Any change/addition for multi-select picklist workarounds in CRM2015?

    One of my company's clients is utilizing the third approach mentioned (making an entity the option list...) for several fields needed in their leads.  The client has mentioned to my company that if they manually create a lead in Dynamics that in order to set any of the multi-select fields they have to first create the lead, then save it and then go back and set the multi-select fields; they are not able to set the multi-select fields when they initially create the lead.  My company is creating their website which includes integration with Dynamics using the Dynamics API. When the leads coming from the website are processed and sent to Dynamics via the API the client is reporting that duplicate options are also being created; the big difference between how the client processes manual leads and how my company processes website leads with the API is the fact that website leads are not saved first prior to setting the multi-select fields (instead all fields are set at once).  I suspect that because my company does not first save the leads from the website before setting any of the multi-select fields that this is causing the inserting of new options.  Has anyone else reported this anomaly?  Is this a configuration issue in Dynamics or is there a way to handle this problem with the API?   

  • awalters Profile Picture
    awalters 3,079 on at
    RE: Any change/addition for multi-select picklist workarounds in CRM2015?

    *shakes head*  So crazy that this hasn't been addressed better yet.  Thank you!

  • awalters Profile Picture
    awalters 3,079 on at
    RE: Any change/addition for multi-select picklist workarounds in CRM2015?

    That's exactly the impression I'd gotten about all previous versions, yes.  Are you confirming this is completely unchanged in 2015?  Thanks!

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